Talk:TWAIN

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Contents 1 "The disadvantage of TWAIN" is not true 2 The word TWAIN is not an acronym 3 The name originates from a techie in-joke? 4 Origin of the Name 5 Authoritative answer on the name 6 TWAIN specification 2 7 The word "Twain"

[edit] "The disadvantage of TWAIN" is not true

"The disadvantage of TWAIN is that it does not separate the user-interface from the driver of a device." ... At least as of version 1.9 this is no longer true! See section 4 of the TWAIN 1.9 spec. --139.80.32.21 04:31, 25 June 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe that SANE is a head-to-head alternative to TWAIN. Is SANE even supported on Windows? And TWAIN as of 1.9 is not supported on any Unix or Linux. I guess I'll be back to edit when I've checked this. AND, I would say the biggest disadvantage of TWAIN is not the UI thing (First, remote network scanning is a rare case and Second there is a commercial product that does it using TWAIN) - the main disadvantage is that there is *no* certification or enforcement of the standard. No two TWAIN drivers offer the same feature set, and *all* of them have bugs. ISIS at least offers certification. Spike0xFF 28 June 2005 08:45 (UTC)

• But the TWAIN spec does say which the requirements are to be compliant. That manufacturers don't produce proper drivers is absolutely their own fault. Actually I find that rather strange, isn't beeing standard compliant another thing you can put on your list of reat reasons why to buy the product?

• Remote scanning is certainly one application of a completely programmable scanner but I think the advantage in SANE is that programmers can supply their own GUIs which is usefull in OEM applications where the scanner is just part of something, e.g. automation.

--139.80.32.134 14:58, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Good grief, when I read this article now it seems completely off-focus. Who cares about the details of exactly what the name means or doesn't mean, or how it got that name? What is the factual basis for the claim about the "biggest disadvantage" of TWAIN? To who? Compared to what? If somebody sees the word "TWAIN" on their scanner box or on an ad (or error message) and they come to this article, do they find a useful, understandable definition of what TWAIN is? I don't think so. Details about the origin of the name, discussion of design failings, *and* and comparisons to competing standards, should all be topics toward the end of the article, not the lead paragraph and the bulk of the content. I'm planning to come back soon and try a rewrite. Spike0xFF 00:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I edited the "Disadvantage of Twain" paragraph to improve its clarity. However, I dispute the assertion that the TWAIN driver cannot be separated from the manufacturer's GUI. There is a flag in the TWAIN specification that allows you to shut off the manufacturer GUI and deal with the TWAIN driver directly. Were that not true, many third party controls that use the specification for scanning purposes (such as Pegasus) would not work at all, or would only work if the manufacturer's GUI was displayed every time the TWAIN driver was invoked by the third party control.

In any case, only programmers care about this sort of thing, and no information about programming TWAIN has been included in the article yet. When I have time, I may come back and add some simple programming examples. The average user of a TWAIN driver only cares that his scanner works, and the manufacturer GUI is probably just fine for him. Robertwharvey 17:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The word TWAIN is not an acronym

I left a sentence about the word TWAIN in the first paragraph. I did so although the sentence is not important enough for the first paragraph of an article.

This article (and its original in FOLDOC) says that the word TWAIN is not an acronym but was taken from a famous poem. However, the phrase "Technology Without ..." is so famous that it has twice been added in the first sentence of this article inconsistently.

I could just erase it. But if I had done so, it will soon be added again. If I were believing TWAIN an acronym, I would immediately jump to adding the phrase in the first sentence proudly. That is why I left the phrase "Technology Without ..." near the first sentence. --Kanjy 15:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

An anonymous user jumped to the first paragraph. I do not know s/he reads this Talk page or not. Anyway I do not like any Edit war. Today I wrote it again with some consideration for Neutral point of view. --Kanjy 04:08, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Modified slightly to accommodate my discussion entry regarding the origin of the name. Hopefully neutral enough, but still representing the position of the working group. --Jmoy 18:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The name originates from a techie in-joke?

At 19:29 UTC 5 February 2006, Mr./Ms. 81.157.144.178 contributed the following sentence. Interesting. I tried to find the sources in several search engines, but got nothing. We only publish material that is verifiable with reference to reliable, published sources. Could someone please find any source?

Some also claim that the name originates from a techie in-joke; that because there was no name for the driver, someone dubbed it a "twain driver" (ie. toddler-speak for "train driver").

--Kanjy 11:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

While at Hewlett-Packard, I worked with Mr. Kevin Biers who chaired the original TWAIN working group. The name of the standard had nothing to do with the aforementioned in-joke. I was present in the cubicle when Mr. Biers and another engineer colleague orignated the name. I will follow up with more discussion on its origin.

--JMoy 05:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, JMoy! --Kanjy 23:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the Name

Over the years, there has been some discussion about origin of the TWAIN name. Nobody seems to know exactly why it was given. Even the standards body that created it (and ought to know) references the Free Online Dictionary entry with no further comment.

The definition there is largely accurate, but incomplete. Because no official acronym was chosen, confusion occurs as people make up their own meanings and then assert or argue it based on hearsay. Amusingly, I saw the issue discussed in the alt.battlestar-gallactica Usenet groups as recently as Oct 2005.

As I was present in the meeting where the name TWAIN was selected for the standard, I thought I might add some background to the issue for the curious. Not that I think it's a particularly interesting discussion. But the fact that the name is in capital letters, combined with nobody knowing for sure why there is no official acronym, seems to produce a sort of cognitive dissonance where people feel the need to fill the void.

HP Greeley R&D

So. Back in 1992 the meeting took place in a Dilbert-style cubicle at Hewlett-Packard's Greeley, Colorado office, the source of the original ScanJet line of scanners. HP was involved in the standard's working group committee, and the cubicle was occupied by Kevin Bier, an R&D engineer who was serving as HP's representative to the committee, and who had been serving as its chairman. Also present was Jim Graham and myself, engineers in the same R&D lab, and working on various projects related to scanners, back in the day when they were designed and manufactured in one building with no overseas assistance.

It was more of a gripe session than an official meeting. Jim and Kevin were lamenting news from corporate legal that the most recent in a string of rejected standards names, "Direct Connect," was also unavailable due to trademark conflicts. This was back in the day when you couldn't just Google a name to see whether it was being used commercially. I was present only because my cubicle was directly across the divider from Kevin's and I was investigating an expletive followed by a slam of a telephone handset into its cradle.

There was a deadline for a name because the initial PR for the standard was being prepared, to be introduced in Byte magazine, at the time a popular rag for the personal computer crowd. Teresa Simske, a colleague at HP, was doing the preparation and had been asking Kevin what the standard should be called. With a hint of exasperation, Kevin commented that he was going to have to call her back and say that she would have call it "the spec without a name," referring to the "specification" -- the document which described the exact functioning of the standard, down to the API level.

Refinement

A split-second later, either Kevin or Jim (I can't remember precisely which, or in what order because of the commotion it caused) lit up and said "The spec without an interesting name!" and "Hey, Twain, then it's actually a word!" Hilarity ensued, with references to Mark Twain and the Kipling poem, and with the winking acknowledgement that it would be fun to take an absurd chain of events like this and get to put it into what would otherwise be a dry, technical document. The 1.0 version of the standard was almost completed, and there was some punchiness about this because of the irony of doing all that work, and having the most pressing issue being the bestowing of a name.

I didn't participate in the phone calls and whatever other activity it took to make the name official. Presumably the other members of the working group were also weary of the name search and so did not take much convincing. Like many people who successfully chair standards committees, Kevin had good people skills and so I guess had no difficulty convincing them. Another detail is that Kevin recounted a phone conversation with Teresa about the unwieldiness of the name, and they came to agreement that the word "spec" was not important, and so "Technology" would replace "The spec" to produce Technology Without An Interesting Name for the PR release.

Toolkit

There have also been references to "Toolkit" instead of "Technology" Without an Interesting Name as well. One example is this post from Bob Gann, who was also an R&D engineer at the time on the hardware side of the original ScanJet projects.

The word "toolkit" refers to the various software components that accompanied the specification, with reference source implementations, C programming language headers, example programs, etc. I remember the term being used within the lab in the months after the naming incident -- note the date of the post -- and so one might interpret it as an equally valid expansion of the acronym.

There it is, for what it's worth. So the acronym does "haunt" the standard as FOLDOC says, but only because the working group doesn't state there existed an actual acronym, or is hesitant to adopt it (grin).

And Who are You?

The reader might ask what qualification I have to state this information authoritatively, to which I can only answer, "I was there," which has its limits. I went on to author the original Macintosh TWAIN Source for the HP ScanJet series that served as an early implementation reference, edited docs, as well as performed application side implementation for the Macintosh version of Adobe Photoshop. Mike Niquette, another HP engineer performed similarly on the Windows side.

Later, I authored the ScannerBe standard for the now defunct BeOS. Jim Graham, Kevin Bier, Mike Niquette, and Teresa Simske have gone on to other things, both in and out of HP. Having left HP in 1993, I can't comment on whether the FOLDOC description about an acronym contest actually occurred, but it hadn't to my knowledge before then. Some other engineers I knew at HP are still there, I wonder what they might say about it?

--Jmoy 01:02, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Authoritative answer on the name

I queried Kevin for his input on the issue of the TWAIN name, and he has weighed in on the subject. Any discrepancies between my discussion account above and his article account should be weighed in favor of his, since he was instrumental its development.

Jmoy 22:23, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

For the record, Wikipedia is the source for this, as Kevin recorded it here (first)? It is great to have an quality answer for this common question; hopefully someone (preferrably Kevin) will note this in a more reliable source, as I would not be surprised if some enterprising person decided to remove it from Wikipedia in order to make a point about WP:OR. John Vandenberg 02:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TWAIN specification 2

According to TWAIN's Website, specification 2 is hoping to be available for 64-bit OSes as well as Unix/linux. Should this be included in the article? Madd the sane 06:38, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The specification can be found on the TWAIN website. Madd the sane 06:40, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The word "Twain"

"The word TWAIN is from Rudyard Kipling's "The Ballad of East and West"" This makes it sound like Rudyard Kipling invented the word "twain". This should read more like "The name TWAIN is taken from the context of Rudyard Kiplings "The Ballad of East and West""

"Twain" also means "two". A "Twain" was used as a measure of depth on the Mississippi River boats. A "Twain" was two fathoms or 12 feet. It was a mark on a rope with a weight or a pole that was used to measure the rivers depth. Two fathoms was called out as "Mark, Twain". Samuel Clemmons used it for his nom de plume.

Just my opinion, left the article as it is. 129.118.139.131 (talk) 21:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)